A Bailout We Don't Need

Now that all five big investment banks -- Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- have disappeared or morphed into regular banks, a question arises.

Is this bailout still necessary?

The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not
worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time.
They're called "loans."

With banks, runs occur only when depositors panic, because they fear
the loan book is bad. Deposit insurance takes care of that. So why not
eliminate the pointless $100,000 cap on federal deposit insurance and
go take inventory?...